Marine Technology Transfer and the Law of the Sea

On 10 December 1982, a signing ceremony was held for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The comprehensive Law of the Sea Treaty was signed by delegates from 117 countries, and the document represented over nine years of difficult negotiations conducted by nearly 3,000 representatives and negotiators. The Treaty is a comprehensive effort to r... read moreegulate the world's oceans, and includes provisions on a wide range of issues, including territorial seas, the continental shelf, the high seas, marine scientific research, exploitation of the deep seabed, straits passage (for commercial shipping and warships), fishing rights, and technology transfer. The accord creates several new international organizations l including mechanisms for regulation of deep seabed mining, dispute resolution, and other ocean affairs. The United States, along with several other major Western industrial countries, has indicated unwillingness to ratify the Treaty due to concerns over the deep seabed regime in general and the technology transfer sub-regime in particular. This dissertation focuses on two primary research questions. The first is: How important was the issue of marine technology transfer to the emerging ocean regime? The second is: In what way can the Treaty be improved or refined in order to improve the possibility of full Western participation in the agreement?
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